My unknown enslaved ancestor: An introspective look at my family’s connection to slavery and how I reconciled that legacy

It was Spring of 2003, my senior year in high school.  For my English class that year, we had to do a family history type of project.  So, I went to my dad to ask him about the family history.  He did not know too terribly much.  But he did pull out an old mailing envelope and showed me some documents.  He showed me my grandfather’s birth certificate.  My grandfather’s name was Wilfred Spotswood Long and he was born October 29, 1919.  I asked my dad about the funny middle name he had, Spotswood.  My dad went on to tell me about the Spotswood name and that we were somehow related to some colonial era governor of Virginia.  My interest was piqued, but it did not go further beyond completing this project for my English class (I always hated English class by the way).  I ended up getting an A on the project, I think.

Fast forward to the summer of 2007.  I was getting ready to head off to Longwood University in August, so I took the summer off to just have fun.  My interest in learning about my family history again came up.  I spent the entire summer researching both sides of my family.  Little did I know the path that this would take me on and what things, people, places, and events I would encounter in my quest to learn about the family story.  Knowing very little in the beginning, I did not know what all I may encounter in my search and my travels seeking out my ancestors.  At one point during my summer of genealogical research in 2007, I was in the Virginia Room at the Roanoke City Library in downtown Roanoke, researching my mom’s side of the family, the Brooks’.  While browsing through a local history of Franklin County, where the Brooks family has been since the late 1700s, I came across a record in that local history that, little did I know, would take me on a long quest.  This quest that would, and still does, have me looking deep into myself, at how I viewed myself, at who I am, where and who I came from (besides just coming from my parents, but further back).  The record read as follows:

See Deed Book 25—Page 243—Franklin County, Virginia

Deed of Trust from Mary Brooks to Cluff M. Brooks

Dated 23, February 1858

Slaves belonging to her husband, William Brooks

One mulatto man by the name of John

One mulatto man by the name of Silas

One black man by the name of Jack

One negro boy by the name of Simon

One woman by the name of Eady

One mulatto woman by the name of Martha, and her two children by the name of Margaret about four years old, a boy by the name of William about eighteen months of age

One negro woman named Gilly and her child by the name of Benjamin about six years old and the future increase of the female slaves

I froze when I found this document.  I was speechless.  I did not know what to think.  I just sat there for a few minutes just staring at this document.  Cluff Brooks was my 3^rd great grandfather, and his mother, Mary and husband William, my 4^th great grandparents.  I thought to myself, “Oh my god, my family owned slaves.”  When I first got into researching the family history, the thought never even crossed my mind that my family would possibly have enslaved other people.  Many other thoughts were racing through my head as I sat there looking at the record.  One that I particularly remember was, “How could you?”  How could my family enslave, own other human beings?  I knew a little about slavery, but not much, but with the moral upbringing my parents provided me, morally, I knew slavery to be wrong.  Being from Southwestern Virginia, growing up, our history books did not cover too much about slavery.  And the narrative down here pretty much was similar to what you see in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind.; the happy, child-like slave, who adored their enslavers and were happy with their situation.

Later, I looked up a little bit online about slavery.  And then I looked at the document I had found at the library some more.  I noticed that some of the named enslaved people were classified as “mulatto” which I learned meant that they were lighter skinned and I thought to myself, what if one of my distant grandfather’s had fathered a child with one of his slaves?  Could it be possible?  I did not think much more on it.  I was soon going to be headed off to college and was majoring in History with a concentration in Public History, so I figured I’d learn more about slavery along the way to getting my degree.  After all, my interest at this point of my life was the Civil War and I knew that slavery played some role in the fighting of that war (I did not quite know because I was always taught that it was about states rights, I now know better, but then, I did not).

At Longwood, I studied a lot of Civil War and Colonial Virginia History.  I was opened up to many new ideas, many new ways of thinking about history.  And most of all, I learned about slavery in America and the role it played, from it’s early roots at Jamestown in 1619, to the Civil War and why it was really fought, up to the Civil Rights Era.  I had many great role models and professors that helped to shape my way of thinking about slavery and the role it played in the founding of our country and, on a more personal level, the role it played in my family history.  A thesis that I wrote for my Frontiers in the Early American Republic course, was my first deep dive into slavery; thank you Dr. Geraghty.  I titled the paper, Slavery and Its Effect on the New Territories of the American Frontier.  It was a good topic and I received an A on it (and it is also featured here on Todd’s Archives).  I got an amazing crash course in my Virginia History class with one of my favorite professors, Dr. Larissa Smith (sorry Dr. Smith, you have to share the favorite role with Dr. Coles).  And to cap it all off, I got to take Virginia in the Civil War with Dr. David Coles, my other favorite professor.  Both of these two, taught me so much about Colonial History and the Civil War.  And as a side note, Dr. Smith’s Virginia History course was the toughest A I earned at Longwood.

Over the years I’ve continued my genealogy research and found out a whole wealth of information and have documented so much of my family history, on both sides of my family.  Most of my mother’s side of the family has been in the Roanoke area since the 1700s.  My dad’s side of the family on the other hand, has origins in Pennsylvania, but some of the branches of his side of the family have very deep Virginia roots, like First Families of Virginia roots.  On his side, I have found that we are descended from prominent families such as the Randolphs, Spotswoods, Jeffersons, Woodsons, Kennons, Farrars, Carters, and many others.  As I have studied Colonial Virginia history, all of these families were slave owners.  Finding all of this out, the realization hit me.  I’m a descendant of many enslavers.  My ancestors not only owned dozens, or hundred, but thousands of enslaved people over the generations.  When I came to that realization, I was like “Oh my God.  How do I reconcile this?”  I knew none of it was my fault, but I couldn’t help but feel ashamed to a degree. 

Now, I have portraits of many of my ancestors up on the wall in my little “library” in my house.  Not because I idolize those ancestors, but because it is a daily reminder of where I came from.  Yes, they were prominent people, leaders of the colony and the founders of a new nation.  But I know their faults, the main one being the perpetuation of the sin of slavery.  I have found that some of my distant grandfathers were involved directly in the slave trade, having been agents for merchants in England who sent slaves to Virginia in colonial days.  As agents for these English merchants, those x number of times great grandfathers were responsible for the selling of slaves here in Virginia.  How do I reconcile that?  Some may say, why do you care Todd, that was many generations ago and you had nothing to do with it?  True, but it is still my family and they were involved in the buying and selling of people, human beings that bleed the same way I do.

In about 2016 or 2017, after having thought about taking an Ancestry DNA test, I finally purchased a kit and sent it in to find out what my genetic make up was.  As I awaited the results to come back, I began to think to myself.  What if I have African DNA?  What then?  With all the connections to prominent Virginia families on my dad’s side of the family, at that time I assumed that if any African DNA showed up, it would be on his side.  Anyone who knows the real and true history of slavery in this country knows that it was common for enslavers to sexually exploit their enslaved women.  On my mom’s side of the family, I had only found one branch of the family that owned slaves.  In Southwestern Virginia, in the colonial days and Antebellum period, slavery was not as widespread on that side of the state.

After waiting in excited anticipation for several weeks, I got my DNA test kit results.  The results showed a lot of what I expected to find; English, Scottish, French, German, Irish, and Welsh.  With a recent update to the DNA analysis, I found I have a small percentage of Ashkenazi Jewish DNA, which makes sense.  My grandmother, Lona Eberle, was from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and until she met and married my grandfather, the generations before her stayed and married into other German and Swiss families.  It is likely through one of the branches on her side that I get the Jewish DNA because Germany had a significant Jewish population during it’s history.

The final piece of my DNA was 1% Senegal, the western most country on the coast of Africa and its surrounding area.  Was I surprised with this result?  No.  As I mentioned previously, with my family’s history and connection to slavery, I knew there would be a good chance that I would have African DNA.  With the big connection to slavery in numerous lines on my dad’s side, I expected the African DNA to have come from his side.  But quite to my surprise, the African DNA came from my mother’s side.  This is the first time I am openly talking about this to a wide audience.  Before, only those closest to me have learned this about me.  I have had some people say, well in the beginning we all came from Africa, blah blah.  Yes, but when you break down percentages, my Senegalese DNA is not that far back into my family history.  We each get 50% of each of our parents DNA.  Then, 25% for each of our four grandparents.  12.5% of each of our eight great grandparents.  You get the picture.  1% in my case puts it at about my 7^th or 8^th generation (4^th or 5^th great grandparent).  So somewhere in those 2 generations of my mother’s side, I likely had an ancestor who was enslaved and that enslaved person was likely a woman, seeing as women were the most susceptible to the whims of their enslavers.

So, I am in fact part African, likely the descendant of a slave, and not that far back in my family, right when slavery was at it’s peak in our nation’s history.  Was I ashamed?  Not in the least.  Having this new revelation, I set out to gain more knowledge, to understand more deeply the history of slavery in our country, in the hopes that it would maybe help me, to some degree, know more about my enslaved 4^th or 5^th grandmother.  Over the last several years, I have read many books on slavery to better understand the complexities of the subject.  I have read books such as The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed, The Most Unavoidable Subject of Regret, by Mary Thompson and First Emancipator, by Andrew Levy, just to name a few.  There are many others I have consumed in my quest to gain more knowledge and understanding.  One book that really stood out to me was Slaves in the Family, by Edward Ball.  In it, he detailed his quest of discovering his connection to slavery and having slave ancestors and how he reconciled that family legacy of slavery.  Mr. Ball’s words really stood out to me and helped me to better understand and reconcile my own family’s connection to slavery.  I even reached out to him in August of 2020 after having read his book with my thoughts and how it helped me with in my own quest.  And to my surprise, Edward Ball responded back to me saying, “Thank you for being in touch, and for your thoughts.  I am glad to know that my books have made an impression.  Your family story is interesting, really, and I wish you the best with investigating it further.  I understand how difficult it is to reckon with the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow.  I wish that I could be of assistance to the many people who, with full hearts and curious minds, reach out to ask questions.  But research of this kind is a somewhat solitary journey—it takes time, but it is gratifying.”  The following link is what led me to Edward Ball’s book and helped me in the future when I came face to face in a similar situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqOl3q8SI1g.

In November 2020, I embarked on a new endeavor, setting up this Blog, Todd’s Archives.  Since setting it up, I have written a number of articles on subjects from history that I find interesting, many of them connected to my own family genealogy, and most of the articles are on little known topics about Colonial Virginia History.  In May of 2022, I wrote a big article on Benjamin Temple, a Revolutionary War officer and post war Virginia statesman, and my 6^th great grandfather.  After I wrote and posted the article, something inside me said, with this article someone connected to his family through slavery would find this article and reach out to me.  So for a few months I thought over what I would say to this person if I ever got to speak to them.  But I expected it would be a long time before that happened. 

Well, on November 15, 2022, a hair-stylist and actress named Cecelia Boler left a comment on the article I wrote about Benjamin Temple saying, “Thank you so much for doing the research on Benjamin Temple.  His son, Benjamin Burnley Temple was the enslaver of my great-great grandfather.”  I honestly did not even finish reading the rest of her comment.  I thought to myself, “Oh shit.”  It was sooner than I expected this to happen.  I did not know how to go about my next steps.  So within hours of receiving her comment, I said “alright, here we go” and reached out to her by email to open communication with her.  I was nervous as hell.  I was worried about what she would think of me being the descendant of the enslaver who had held her 2^nd great grandfather in bondage.  For the next few months, we emailed and messaged back and forth, getting to know each other.  She quickly put me at ease.  She is a beautiful woman and is very delightful.  We finally talked on the phone, I think it was in January of 2023.  One of the first things I said to her before we got into conversation was, “I’m sorry for what my ancestors did to your ancestors.”  It was the first thing that popped into my head and felt like the right thing to say.  And this is where healing and understanding begins on this subject.  Simply acknowledging it and understanding the pain.

Since then, I have gotten to know Ms. Boler quite well.  Like I said, she is a wonderful person, and from the moment I first spoke to her, I have always felt at ease talking with her, whether its by phone or through messaging.  She has always made me feel like I’m family and even though we are not connected by blood, I feel like she is family to me.  One of the most awesome things I have learned about is her family’s journey from slavery to freedom and the many accomplished and talented people in her family.  I’m so happy she found my article and feel truly blessed to have connected with her, even though the connection is not the best of connections, we have made the most and best of it.  I also want to thank her, because she has helped me to look at slavery and its legacy from her point of view and to reconcile my family history and connection to such a horrible institution.

Cecelia’s great grandfather, whom connects both of our families, was a man named Carter Temple Jr. (formerly Carr Hopkins).  He was born enslaved, in 1843 in Kentucky.  His father, Carter Temple, Sr. was born in Virginia in about 1811.  Carter, Sr. was enslaved by Benjamin Burnley Temple.  He moved his family to Kentucky, as well as those he enslaved, including Carter Temple, Sr.  Carter Temple, Jr. was freed in 1863 and enlisted in the 14^th United States Colored Infantry Regiment.  One of the notable battles he and his regiment participated in was the Battle of Nashville, December 15-16, 1864.  Carter, Jr. ended his service with the rank of corporal.  He and his family would go on to settle in Indianapolis, Indiana.  Carter, Jr. would become one of the first African American police officers in Indianapolis in 1876.  He would serve in this role until an injury forced him to retire in 1900.  Carter, Jr. died in 1929 in Indianapolis.  His life was an amazing one, taking him from enslavement, to freedom, to serving his country and fighting for the freedom of others, to being among the first lawmen of his race in Indianapolis.  A life well and long lived.  I have a picture of him on the wall in my “library”, in a prominent place, right next to the Declaration of Independence.  I have his picture up as a daily reminder of what human beings can accomplish if given the opportunity.  Though there is no positive to slavery, his story is an inspiration and testament to the outcome of the end of slavery in America.

Carter Temple, Jr. in his policeman’s uniform. Photo courtesy of Cecelia Boler.

In May of 2024, I went to visit Old Brick House in Colonial Heights, Virginia, the home of the Kennon family, whom I am also descended from.  One of the ladies there had seen my blog and when I went for my tour, they said they could use someone like me on their board.  I was voted onto their board just a couple of months later in July as their Chair of Publicity.  Since then, I have been made an admin on their Facebook account and grown the following from 270 followers to approaching 1,000 followers in a short time span.  I have also created a website for them with a history of Old Brick House, information on the board and the Old Brick House Foundation, and a page for blog articles. 

Currently I am working on a narrative about slavery and the role it played at Old Brick House and the Kennon family’s connection to the institution.  If you asked me back in 2007 when I found that first document tying my family to slavery, could I see myself writing a narrative of slavery at a historic site, I probably would have laughed and said “yeah right”.  I have connected with one of my old professors from Longwood, Dr. Smith, who has agreed to look at what I have done to provide feedback.  While I have been working on this narrative, I read the book Sleeping with the Ancestors, by Joseph McGill, the executive director of the Slave Dwelling Project.  Moved by what their project has done, I reached out to them for guidance, feedback, and for them to take a look at my narrative.  I was put in contact with Nicole Moore, a historic consultant who interprets slave life and the Director of Education at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights.  She is an awesome person and super down to earth and easy to talk to.  Ms. Moore was kind enough to do a Zoom meeting with me to go over my narrative, it’s strengths and weaknesses and any other feedback.  She loved it and thought it is on point and I am definitely on the right track.  Just a few changes needed in the wording of a few things, better than what I expected (I tend to be harsh on myself and think that what I research and write isn’t good enough).  Hopefully in the future, I’ll get a chance to talk to and maybe even meet Joe McGill, the founder of the Slave Dwelling Project, as his work with what he has done with staying in slave dwellings partly inspired me to take this more introspective look at who I am and where I came from.

My final thought is about whoever my enslaved ancestor was (assuming that ancestor was a woman).  I think about this quite often.  What was her name?  I’ll likely never know, to date I still have not been able to track down anything.  Unfortunately, this is common with slavery.  Exclusion of slaves from records makes tracing enslaved ancestors quite difficult.  I would want to apologize to her for what she had to endure.  But at the same time, I would thank her for her strength and fortitude, for without her, I wouldn’t be who I am, maybe even wouldn’t exist.  I would want to hug her like a grandson would hug their grandmother.  I would want to ask her about her life.  Where did she come from or where did her people, my people, come from in Africa?  How did she hold on through the toughest and darkest of days.  Were there any joys in her life?  How would you want to be remembered?  How can I honor an enslaved ancestor whom I know nothing about, not even her name?  I think the answer to that is to continue on the path I am on.

Slavery was our country’s greatest sin.  But acknowledging it matters.  It is the first step towards healing those wounds.  Knowledge helps us to reconcile the past and be able to have open and honest conversations about it.  Edward Ball is correct that this journey is a solitary one, but along the way I met some amazing people who became a part of my journey and were instrumental in helping me develop and expand my knowledge, and in a way helped me get closer to my enslaved ancestor.  My professors Drs. Coles and Smith planted the seed and showed me a new avenue of information and learning.  Cecelia Boler opened the flood gates of my emotions by being the first descendant of an enslaved person owned by my family to reach out to me, and in the process she has become a friend and like family to me.  Nicole Moore and the Slave Dwelling Project has helped me to realize that I’ve got this and that I have developed a good knowledge on slavery and what it was.  And Rosalyn Morgan Upshaw, a retired educator in California, a Black descendant of the Kennon family at Old Brick House, and in fact a distant cousin of mine because of our connection to the Kennons, has been a part of my journey.  I was first connected with Rosalyn several months ago by another Kennon descendant and distant cousin of mine, named Ann Kennon Breslauer.  Rosalyn is an amazing woman and is very intelligent.  She is still in the early stages of learning her connections to the Kennons, so we are learning together.  We have had many discussions on history, family, genealogy, the importance of historical memory and honoring our ancestors.  One of the things that has drawn me closer to her is when one day I told her she has a wonderful and beautiful family.  Her response was simple, but powerful to me; “They are your family too”.  If I could imagine what my enslaved ancestor to have been like, Rosalyn would be it.  Strong, intelligent, accepting of me, and warm hearted with open arms.  This is the path to healing and reconciling a horrible legacy—gaining knowledge, understanding, conversation, and coming together.